Extraction from chaos?
By Michael Deibert
Foreign Direct Investment
April 10, 2008
Embattled by war and corruption but laden with large deposits of diamonds and copper, DR Congo is largely avoided by investors. Might that change? Michael Deibert reports.
Blessed with natural resources and occupying a vast swath of central Africa as large as the US east of the Mississippi River, the Democratic Republic of Congo is home to some of the word’s largest deposits of diamonds, copper, cobalt and coltan. Despite a fecund climate encompassing everything from dense, nearly impenetrable rainforests to fertile plains, the country has remained one of Africa’s most tragic. Held in the grip of a predatory state culture of corruption and the often nefarious designs of its neighbours and unscrupulous business dealers with little long-term interest in developing its infrastructure, DR Congo has struggled to attract investors.
The country’s president, Joseph Kabila, first assumed office in 2001 following the assassination of his father, Laurent, who led a rebel movement that toppled the 32-year dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko.
Elected for the first time during a violent ballot in 2006, President Kabila is an often mute presence on the Congolese political scene, going for weeks at a time without appearing in public. Nevertheless, the government has begun to take small steps to regularise the often anarchic foreign investment climate in the country, and in February completed a review of all international mining contracts, many of which were signed by President Kabila’s father under circumstances of questionable transparency during DR Congo’s 1998-2002 civil war.
Read the full article here.
Showing posts with label Bundu dia Kongo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bundu dia Kongo. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
POLITICS-DRC: In a Governmental Vacuum, Yearnings for a Lost Empire
POLITICS-DRC: In a Governmental Vacuum, Yearnings for a Lost Empire
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
MATADI, Western DRC, Mar 21, 2007 (IPS) - On a broad hillside high above the meandering flow of the Mpozo River, a handful of policemen guard a ruin.
The flag of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) flutters weakly over scattered bricks and broken crockery, mute witness to a power struggle that has erupted in this western corner of the country, pitting a sect seeking to restore a lost ethnic kingdom against a government that seems determined to crush any challenge to its authority.
"Here are their arms, their fetishes, you can see them here," says Edmond Bunga, a local commander of the Police Nationale Congolaise (Congolese National Police, PNC), pointing towards what he claims are poisoned arrows used to attack police in the devastated compound of the Bundu dia Kongo (BDK) or "Kingdom of Kongo", as Congo is spelled in the local Kikongo language.
The BDK, led by Ne Muanda Nsemi, a member of Congo's parliament who hails from the region, have stated that their goal is nothing less than to reunify the Kingdom of Kongo. Made up of the Bakongo people -- found in the DRC and neighbouring states -- this empire existed in various incarnations for nearly 500 years until the early 20th century, encompassing swaths of what is now Angola, Gabon, the Republic of Congo and the DRC.
However, the government accuses the group of attempting to mount a rebellion in the Bas-Congo province, immediately west of the nation's capital, Kinshasa.
Read the full article here.
By Michael Deibert
Inter Press Service
MATADI, Western DRC, Mar 21, 2007 (IPS) - On a broad hillside high above the meandering flow of the Mpozo River, a handful of policemen guard a ruin.
The flag of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) flutters weakly over scattered bricks and broken crockery, mute witness to a power struggle that has erupted in this western corner of the country, pitting a sect seeking to restore a lost ethnic kingdom against a government that seems determined to crush any challenge to its authority.
"Here are their arms, their fetishes, you can see them here," says Edmond Bunga, a local commander of the Police Nationale Congolaise (Congolese National Police, PNC), pointing towards what he claims are poisoned arrows used to attack police in the devastated compound of the Bundu dia Kongo (BDK) or "Kingdom of Kongo", as Congo is spelled in the local Kikongo language.
The BDK, led by Ne Muanda Nsemi, a member of Congo's parliament who hails from the region, have stated that their goal is nothing less than to reunify the Kingdom of Kongo. Made up of the Bakongo people -- found in the DRC and neighbouring states -- this empire existed in various incarnations for nearly 500 years until the early 20th century, encompassing swaths of what is now Angola, Gabon, the Republic of Congo and the DRC.
However, the government accuses the group of attempting to mount a rebellion in the Bas-Congo province, immediately west of the nation's capital, Kinshasa.
Read the full article here.
Friday, March 14, 2008
A few thoughts from Kinshasa
Kinshasa is an ungentle place.
The other day, a young shegue I know, who always displays the most upbeat demenour despite what must be a life of grinding desperation on the streets of Congo’s capital city, came up to me as I walked along one of the main roads where the street children wash cars for a pittance. His left eye was bandaged and horribly swollen, and he said that he had been hit with a rock, by whom I was not able to understand. Buying him some bread, as I habitually do (250 Congolese francs) seemed to be the least that I could do.
Driving in a friend’s care yesterday, though, looking out the window, I saw a young boy who couldn’t have been much more than 10, struggling under the blazing sun, loaded down with suitcases that he and an older man who I assume was his father, were trying to sell. He was shoeless.
Walking down Boulevard du 30 Juin to buy some groceries, a young boy that I know, who is missing an arm and habitually begs from motorists at stoplights on the thoroughfare, was hard at work, as usual.
Despite the wonderful music and the looming, watchful presence of the Congo River only a few hundred yards from my door, Kinshasa, it must be said, has perhaps the most pervasively visible misery of any city that I have ever seen. There is a noticeable lack of the Caribbean joie de vivre that animates Port-au-Prince, or the jarring moments of deep spirituality and vibrant colour with which Bombay is suffused, or the sheen of urbane sophistication one still finds in Abidjan despite the civil war there.
As Congo struggles to leave behind the weight of its history and to find a way to use its vast resources to create a more equitable, stable country, conflict continues to flare not only in the east of the country, as I have written about in the past, but also in the west nearer to Kinshasa, where the politico-religious group Bundu dia Kongo (BDK) is currently slugging it out with security forces in Bas-Congo province.
Despite the failings of the Congolese state, stretching all the way back to Belgium's brutal seven decade occupation, the Congolese, in my view deserve better than what they are getting right now, both from their own leaders and from the international community. The lack of moral energy of many in the journalistic profession in the west, who would be covering front pages worldwide if a conflict in Europe or North America had claimed 5 million lives, is decidedly underwhelming, as is the decided lack of transparency of the United Nation mission here. The human rights chief of the mission (known by its French-language acronym of MONUC), Fernando Castañón, seems plainly terrified of reporters, local or foreign, poking around too closely around its activities in the country, a stance unique in my history of covering three previous UN deployments (Côte d'Ivoire, Haiti, Guatemala) and one which rather makes a mockery of MONUC’s stated mission regarding the “monitoring, and the reporting of any violations” of the ceasefire agreement that helped end one phase of Congo’s civil war. Perhaps the fact that MONUC troops have been caught in some violations of there own once or twice might have something to do with that reticence.
Not to end on too grim a note, the city does have its charming side. Having a beer by the rapids of the Congo River at Chez Tintin as the sun sets, as smooth soukous plays and Congolese families chow down on goat and fisherman cast their nets just offshore is one of them. The sublime barbecued chicken at Mama Colonel in the Bandalungwa district is another. A meal at the Taj restaurant, after an eight-story ride on a decrepit and foul-smelling elevator, only to find the entire city spread out in the view beneath you once you arrive makes a hectic and sweat-drenched day on the streets disappear like so much pollution-hued ether on a windy day.
Nevertheless, for all the good they are worth, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a country more desperately in need of good journalists than the one I find myself in today.
The other day, a young shegue I know, who always displays the most upbeat demenour despite what must be a life of grinding desperation on the streets of Congo’s capital city, came up to me as I walked along one of the main roads where the street children wash cars for a pittance. His left eye was bandaged and horribly swollen, and he said that he had been hit with a rock, by whom I was not able to understand. Buying him some bread, as I habitually do (250 Congolese francs) seemed to be the least that I could do.
Driving in a friend’s care yesterday, though, looking out the window, I saw a young boy who couldn’t have been much more than 10, struggling under the blazing sun, loaded down with suitcases that he and an older man who I assume was his father, were trying to sell. He was shoeless.
Walking down Boulevard du 30 Juin to buy some groceries, a young boy that I know, who is missing an arm and habitually begs from motorists at stoplights on the thoroughfare, was hard at work, as usual.
Despite the wonderful music and the looming, watchful presence of the Congo River only a few hundred yards from my door, Kinshasa, it must be said, has perhaps the most pervasively visible misery of any city that I have ever seen. There is a noticeable lack of the Caribbean joie de vivre that animates Port-au-Prince, or the jarring moments of deep spirituality and vibrant colour with which Bombay is suffused, or the sheen of urbane sophistication one still finds in Abidjan despite the civil war there.
As Congo struggles to leave behind the weight of its history and to find a way to use its vast resources to create a more equitable, stable country, conflict continues to flare not only in the east of the country, as I have written about in the past, but also in the west nearer to Kinshasa, where the politico-religious group Bundu dia Kongo (BDK) is currently slugging it out with security forces in Bas-Congo province.
Despite the failings of the Congolese state, stretching all the way back to Belgium's brutal seven decade occupation, the Congolese, in my view deserve better than what they are getting right now, both from their own leaders and from the international community. The lack of moral energy of many in the journalistic profession in the west, who would be covering front pages worldwide if a conflict in Europe or North America had claimed 5 million lives, is decidedly underwhelming, as is the decided lack of transparency of the United Nation mission here. The human rights chief of the mission (known by its French-language acronym of MONUC), Fernando Castañón, seems plainly terrified of reporters, local or foreign, poking around too closely around its activities in the country, a stance unique in my history of covering three previous UN deployments (Côte d'Ivoire, Haiti, Guatemala) and one which rather makes a mockery of MONUC’s stated mission regarding the “monitoring, and the reporting of any violations” of the ceasefire agreement that helped end one phase of Congo’s civil war. Perhaps the fact that MONUC troops have been caught in some violations of there own once or twice might have something to do with that reticence.
Not to end on too grim a note, the city does have its charming side. Having a beer by the rapids of the Congo River at Chez Tintin as the sun sets, as smooth soukous plays and Congolese families chow down on goat and fisherman cast their nets just offshore is one of them. The sublime barbecued chicken at Mama Colonel in the Bandalungwa district is another. A meal at the Taj restaurant, after an eight-story ride on a decrepit and foul-smelling elevator, only to find the entire city spread out in the view beneath you once you arrive makes a hectic and sweat-drenched day on the streets disappear like so much pollution-hued ether on a windy day.
Nevertheless, for all the good they are worth, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a country more desperately in need of good journalists than the one I find myself in today.
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